Big Daddy (1999)

June 25, 1999

FILM REVIEW; What Happens When a Little Boy Meets a Very Big Baby

By JANET MASLIN

Published: June 25, 1999

It's awfully early in the career of Adam Sandler to find him sharing the screen with a heart-tugging, scene-stealing 6-year-old. Besides, the cute kid in Mr. Sandler's movies is usually the star himself. But as the film world's latest $20 million, 800-pound gorilla, he can do whatever he likes, even if it's a flimsy sentimental comedy with more product plugs and fewer laughs than might have been hoped for. The director, Dennis Dugan, who also directed the much funnier ''Happy Gilmore,'' has said, ''I'd work with Sandler if he called up and said, 'I've got an idea to dramatize the phone book.' '' On the evidence of ''Big Daddy,'' that's not such a joke.

Having greatly expanded his following with the romantic comedy and 80's kitsch of ''The Wedding Singer,'' not to mention the inspired rustic lunacy of ''The Waterboy,'' Mr. Sandler falls back on much less inventive material this time. He plays a case of arrested development (funny so far) who hopes to impress his girlfriend with his maturity by adopting a little boy (getting colder) whom he eventually learns to care for in earnest (brrrr!). The film even contains a counter-comical courtroom scene in which the star declares about parenting: ''I won't fail at that! I can't! I love this kid too much.''

Mr. Sandler has progressed to the point where he can deliver those lines with convincing sincerity. He may also be ready to play Shakespeare, but that doesn't mean he ought to be doing it. This actor's temperamental, infantile side happens to be his most appealing, and his taste for anarchic outbursts is his best secret weapon. ''Big Daddy'' doesn't ignore these gifts entirely, but it doesn't give them the prominence they deserve. An overabundance of nice-guy moments, including a love scene verging on baby talk, gives the film tepid predictability instead of a cutting edge.

Mr. Sandler plays Sonny Koufax, a 32-year-old law school graduate whose friends wear suits and act like lawyers. Sonny himself spends time in a tollbooth, and that's as close to work as he's willing to come. This causes his girlfriend Vanessa (Kristy Swanson) to be unhappy with him, which she expresses while flouncing around in a red bra. To impress Vanessa and make audiences marvel at the film's shameless contrivances, Sonny decides to adopt a boy named Julian (played by Cole and Dylan Sprouse), who is almost literally dropped on his doorstep.

''Man, this Yoo-Hoo is good,'' Sonny says to Julian. ''Know what's even better? Smokin' dope.'' And that's pretty much the film's approach to fatherhood during its first hour. Unfortunately, it's not often more original than that, and even its high-profile gag about Julian's urinating outdoors is given four or five weary workouts. An even more popular running motif has Sonny making fun of Corinne (Leslie Mann), a friend's girlfriend, because she was once a waitress at Hooters and still has the anatomy for that job. The Hooters restaurant chain is mentioned relentlessly throughout the film. There's a scene set at an actual Hooters, too.

Even viewers well acclimated to prominent product plugs, like those all over the new Austin Powers film, may be taken aback by the flagrant, tireless promotion of junk food here. The barrage of brand-name chips and soda and spaghetti is enough to make skin break out in the audience. And the pluggable brands even make their way into the screenplay by Mr. Sandler, Tim Herlihy and Steve Franks, one that includes a longish sequence about buying a meal at McDonald's for a homeless man. As played by Steve Buscemi, he is one of the colorful minor characters on hand to distract attention from the ostensible plot.

Also here are Rob Schneider as an especially funny Russian delivery man, Jon Stewart as Sandy's law school friend, Ms. Mann nicely acerbic in her comic scenes with Mr. Sandler, and the Sprouse twins (who once shared a role on the television series ''Grace Under Fire'') showing off doleful eyes and a lisp. Romance arrives in the form of a wholesome lawyer played by Joey Lauren Adams, though the sappiness of her role here is made all the more startling by memories of her sharp talk in ''Chasing Amy.'' Her character and Mr. Sandler's share a pre-emptive brief exchange, actually one of the film's funnier moments, about the awfulness of critics. Obviously, they can read minds.

Directed by Dennis Dugan; written by Steve Franks, Tim Herlihy and Adam Sandler, based on a story by Mr. Franks; director of photography, Theo Van de Sande; edited by Jeff Gourson; music by Teddy Castellucci; production designer, Perry Andelin Blake; produced by Sid Ganis and Jack Giarraputo; released by Columbia Pictures. Running time: 95 minutes. This film is rated PG-13.